


Dull

by halotolerant



Category: Inspector Morse (TV)
Genre: Angst, Backstory, M/M, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/pseuds/halotolerant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would find him dull</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dull

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kindkit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindkit/gifts).



He would find him dull. 

This is Robbie’s fear.

That Morse - who insulates himself with bookcases and record sleeves, who suffers fools badly, who rearranges crossword clues faster than Robbie can read them - will find nothing fascinating in a try-hard Geordie lad done good. 

Robbie grew up on a street where you respected your Mam first, your Dad second, your football club third. Somewhere down the list came the coppers, maybe. School didn’t really feature. 

Robbie fought his way to learning ABC, 123 and what was all that about 1066. ‘Fought’ as in _fought_. Fought as in held off the lads who found his otherness offensive with his fists and his willpower, his refusal to break, to surrender. 

That got him hard-won qualifications, the door to another life, to a profession. 

Till he met Morse, he’d always been the clever one in the room.

And this is where the daydream breaks down; this dullness. Because when he pictures the two of them, sitting in Morse’s living room, he sees them melancholy, staring at a two-bar heater, out of conversation, Morse sighing, shifting and pouring himself another. 

Robbie could think more of other fantasies. Of how Morse might look, if Robbie touched him – of how he might look away, how Robbie might call him back. Whether he would gaze at Robbie in that way – almost amazed, tender, eager, _hungry_ , scared – in which Robbie has seen him regard his lady companions. Or whether it might be different, whether it might all be different, whether for Morse, as well as for Robbie, to be with another man might be something infinitely more real, true and splendid. 

(Robbie was already the bookworm, as a kid. He could only fight so many battles, transgress so many lines away from the norm. Dating Val had made him more acceptable – she was a local lass, a proper thing to want. And he’d never been in love, when he was younger; so much he hadn’t known he was missing.)

In his dreams, Robbie kisses Morse once and twice and again, and again.

But you cannot always be kissing. And he fears his mouth cannot speak, not well enough and so he does not let it. 

\- - -

He would find him dull. 

This is Morse’s fear. 

That Lewis – Lewis who laughs, who knows everyone’s name, grins and slings slang, who hugs as if it is easy – would laugh again (not unkindly, he is not unkind, but with pure, honest surprise), at the thought of such love from such a quarter. 

Morse grew up in a house at war within itself. There was only so far one could escape into books and schoolwork. Only so many clubs to be joined. Only so much time that could be spent avoiding family. 

They never touched, barely even in photographs when encouraged together by others who held cameras and gestured inwards, those laughing friends who clung and clutched and kissed, apparently finding it simple enough. 

Houses and homes are different things. Morse did not learn that art that transmogrifies the one to the other. 

But he has found it now, or the essence of it. It is in people, or a person, that make avoidance seem wrong, that make companionship seem easy. 

Sometimes Lewis will just be talking – the two of them, in a pub booth, lunching together, as if they were something more than colleagues, or could be – simply speaking, recounting something in his own unique, sharp way. And Morse will want to kiss him, for the warmth he gives the pit of Morse’s stomach, for the calm of his voice, for the sense of home that comes with him. 

(Morse likes women. But that does not make him like men less. And no one in the world has ever made him feel like this before. As if ‘home’ and ‘family’ are mere constructs that mean – _to be with you_. )

But he can only imagine the look on Lewis’ face. The horror or confusion or even disgust that might flit over his features before he’d be smiling – kindly – and trying to fix it, this thing that Morse would have broken beyond repair. 

He’d go, in the end. Transfer, even move away. And Morse would be fully alone again, unable even to pretend there are half-heard understandings, half-caught glimpses. 

In his dreams, he speaks to Lewis. 

(To Robbie.)

In his dreams, he listens, hears more of the things that make Robbie what he is, the rough diamond learning so beautifully, fighting so hard, caring so much. 

But he cannot get closer without touching. 

And so he does not. And he tells Lewis to stop speaking, mocks, puts him down to discourage him. 

Just in case. 

\- - -

 

 

 

 


End file.
